This invention generally relates to juice extractors and, more particularly, to a juice extractor having a relatively large food chute to facilitate the passage of larger food stuffs therethrough.
Juice extractors are generally known in the small appliance art. Typically, juice extractors have relatively small food chutes through which smaller diameter food stuffs like carrots, celery, and the like can be passed to extract juice therefrom, typically one-by-one. When using such a juice extractor, if a user wishes to extract juice from a larger food stuff, like an apple, for instance, the user must first chop the larger food stuff into smaller pieces sized to fit through the smaller chute. This process can be particularly cumbersome and time-consuming when the user wishes to produce a larger amount of juice.
To address this problem, juice extractors were produced with larger food chutes to enable more than one smaller food item or at least one larger food item to be passed through the food chute at a time. However, an inherent problem with such larger food chutes is that smaller food stuffs have the tendency to rotate around the food chute, often times violently, if unrestrained. For this reason, certain such juice extractors include knife edges or hinged members within the food chutes to restrain rotational motion of such food stuffs within the food chute.
Such rotation-inhibiting structures are not without drawbacks, however. For instance, knife edges are more prone to breakage, and, because the knife edges physically cut into the food stuffs as the food stuffs are passed through the food chute, knife edges tend to make it relatively difficult to pass harder food stuffs through the larger food chute. Employing a hinged member within the food chute requires the use of a relatively large cutter/strainer assembly therein in order to accommodate displacement of the hinged member when larger food stuffs are passed through the food chute. When compared to a smaller cutter/strainer assembly, because of the larger diameter of the larger cutter/strainer assembly, greater linear speeds are experienced at an outer edge of the larger cutter/strainer assembly and larger forces are imparted on the larger cutter/strainer assembly during rotation thereof, assuming both the larger and smaller cutter/strainer assemblies are rotated at the same angular speed. For this reason, balancing of the larger cutter/strainer assembly is more critical than with smaller cutter/strainer assemblies to avoid wobble of the larger cutter/strainer assembly during usage. An additional drawback to the use of a hinged member is the relatively high cost of the juice extractor, not only for the manufacture and implementation of the hinged member, but also for the extra material costs of the larger cutter/strainer assembly and the housing to accommodate the larger cutter/strainer assembly. Also, the larger cutter/strainer assembly must be made relatively stronger than smaller cutter/strainer assemblies in order to withstand the larger forces experienced thereby, further adding to the cost thereof.
For this reason, it would be desirable to provide a relatively inexpensive juice extractor having a relatively large food chute that can accommodate larger amounts and sizes of food stuffs, which is able to inhibit rotation of the food stuffs within the food chute, while at the same time being relatively easy to clean and assemble. It is desirable that the juice extractor have an anti-rotation structure within the food chute that is less prone to breakage and that is relatively easy to pass food stuffs by, even if the food stuffs are relatively hard. It is further desirable that the juice extractor have a device for securing the lid yet allows for convenient lid removal.